Rock-climbing in the English Lake District / Third Edition

by Owen Glynne Jones

In the chapel only lights burned. It was the vigil round the body of Reinstadler. Silently and sadly we tramped up the valley along the carriage road to Haudères. Then in single file, like an army on a night march, we marched up the steep and narrow path to Ferpècle. Far below us, on our right, the torrent roared. We picked precarious steps by the light of our lanterns and the aid of our axes. We talked little and in muffled tones.

We reached Ferpècle about 1.30 a.m. on Thursday. The hamlet was asleep. The guides broke eight huge poles out of the fences of the fields and from the outbuildings. Grim duty! The poles were to make four rude biers on which to carry the bodies down.

Between 3 and 4 a.m. we gained the Bricolla Alp, where Jones and Hill had slept the night before the fatal climb. The kindly shepherd provided us with milk and a fire—it was now very cold—and we produced provisions from our rücksacks and had a much-needed meal. It was a curious sight—the little stone hut, a big wood fire blazing in a hole in the floor, pails of milk all round the walls on shelves, a circle of rough weather-beaten men, their faces lighted by the flickering flames and by the uncertain light of one or two of our lanterns. Rembrandtesque—and profoundly sad.

A little after four we went out. The grey dawn was just breaking, but a cold, thick, clammy white mist had swept down on the alp and chilled us to the bone. At the top of the moraine my friend and I had to turn back. We should only have been a hindrance had we gone on, as both of us were damaged. Spender and the guides went forward. Let Mr. Spender describe the rest.

‘At four the column resumed its way. Rain had begun to fall and a dense mist was closing down upon us. But it was soon light enough to put out our lanterns, and courage came with the dawn. We rounded the alp, and then began to climb the long, dreary moraines which lead up to the glacier. The guides went at a terrific pace. But it was good to be taken into this noble fraternity—to be accepted as a comrade and not as a “climber”—to be honoured by a share in the generous quest.

‘But the pace soon slackened. We halted on the edge of the glacier, roped in fours, and began to search gingerly for a way through the terrific ice-fall of the glacier. We were mounting by the old approach to the Dent Blanche, up the ice-fall, now long since abandoned. The glacier was, of course, quite changed since any of these guides had last visited it. The ice was split and rent into every conceivable shape. We were surrounded with leaning towers of ice, threatening at any moment to fall on us and crush us.

‘A great pile of seracs on the Northern ice-fall, across the ridge, fell with a mighty crash. Away to the right we could hear the thunder of avalanches. But never for a moment did the guides hesitate. Steadily and unflinchingly they threaded their way between the menacing seracs. Crossing broken fragments of ice, balancing between profound crevasses, not thwarted but ever searching for a way. At last we suddenly struck upon the tracks of Jones’ party away to the North side of the glacier close to the rocks. There we scrambled up, half by the rocks and half by the ice, and then at last, after many hours, found ourselves on the great plateau beneath the long snow couloir running down from the West Ridge. There, if anywhere, they were likely to be. And there, high up among the rocks, we could just see, with the aid of a good telescope, some dark objects which were not rocks.

‘“There are our friends,” said the guides.

‘Yes, there was no doubt of it. It was now ten o’clock and the sky had cleared. A party was formed, and mounted the rocks to fetch the bodies. As they climbed, suddenly another army of men appeared below us, above the ice-fall, advancing swiftly. They were the party of the Zermatt Guides. They came on unroped, climbing fast. It was a magnificent sight to see this troop of giants in their own element, a troop of equals, masters of peril. They halted below the rocks and sent up another small band to join the Evolena Guides. There was a long pause, and then they all began to descend, bringing the bodies.

‘I will draw a veil over what we found. Men cannot fall many thousands of feet and lie in artistic attitudes.... But it was four o’clock before the Bricolla hut was reached, and darkness had fallen before the bodies came to Haudères. The Zermatt Guides were out for twenty-four hours, and the Evolena Guides over twenty.’